#22 Onwards to Fiji!

A word about Lynnie

Joining us on our second longest passage of our adventure, the 1,600 mile trip to Fiji was my Auntie Lynnie, sister of my Stepdad Mike. Lynnie is one of the most experienced ocean sailors I know having cruised and raced across 100,000 miles. Probably her most prestigious experience was as full-time crew aboard maxi yacht Ballyhoo (which later became Mistress Quickly) on which she competed in Fastnet, Sydney to Hobart and numerous other races. A yacht owner for many many years, not only is she a great sailor but is also a lovely person and she settled immediately into the Kilauea way of life with her trademark boundless energy and enthusiasm that put the rest of us to shame.

For this passage I have extracted my daily blog updates from the predictwind tracker and repeated them below to give the reader a flavour of what this passage was like to experience. I hope you enjoy.

Day 1 – The sleigh ride begins

Despite being in the middle of moving her life around the world and fighting illness Jess has yet again very kindly offered to give some weather and routing advice for this passage and she was spot on again. She spoke quite a bit about experiencing some “convergence” on the first night which in laymans terms means “crappy sailing weather”. Lots of rain, wind swinging about all over the shop, ranging from faint breeze to near gale as numerous squalls swept through. After going off watch at 11pm I was up again at 2:30am and spent from then until after daybreak adjusting sails, goose winging one minute, reefing the next and gybing multiple times. In fact we gybed more times in Lynnie’s one watch than we did in the entire 3,000 mile passage to the Marquases.

However, just as Jess predicted the winds have settled in today at 20-25 knots from the ESE and not one squall has hit all day. The seas are big but fortunately long as well. Wave after wave rises up relentlessly astern towering over the boat for a moment before Kilauea rises to meet it and we go surfing down the face hitting speeds approaching 15 knots at times. Its just hold on, watch the water rush past and pray the autopilot doesn’t fail kind of sailing.

The first full day at sea is always a bit of a moochy one with the crew and today was no exception. The kids declared it a pyjama day and Jazz has been learning knitting while Hugo has completed the Percy Jackson book series. Lottie has been on good form entertaining us all with some dubious dance moves during “happy hour” and Lynnie has continued the tradition of our guests being excellent cooks by preparing a delicious Thai chicken curry from scratch, a feat all the remarkable when you consider how the galley (kitchen) is lurching around like a bucking bronco.

We finally have our cruising buddies Quickstep Too behind us as our longer waterline length comes into effect in this stronger wind. We’re having to work hard to sail the boat as well as we can to match them. This could be considered embarrassing considering they are the smaller and theoretically slower version of our boat but in our defence we are up against two excellent and experienced sailors with Nick having a volvo ocean race under his belt amongst his many other ocean racing accomplishments. Its been great to have them keeping us on our toes and sailing the boat efficiently rather than our usual somewhat lazy style. We may be 4 miles ahead of them now but I have no doubt that will be reversed in a heartbeat when they spot a sneaky shift and gybe into it at 4am when we let our guard down.

Day 2 – Fish on!

Its been 2 whole archipelagos since we last caught an edible ocean fish, the last one being the mighty 100lb yellowfin near Fatu Hiva in the Marquases and in fact we ate the last piece of that fish just 3 days ago. Well that all changed today. We hadn’t put the lines out thus far, none of us feeling we could handle the butchering process if we did catch one but the day dawned bright and sunny so Jazzy chose the lures as has become tradition and out went the lines.

We got a hit in the morning but the fish threw the hook and then the rod went crazy again soon after lunch. At this stage we were wing on wing (mainsail one side, jib the other) surfing down waves travelling between 7 and 10 knots and I wasn’t going to reduce speed, partly because it was a lot of effort to do so but mainly because Quickstep Too were just over the horizon behind us ready to jump on any opportunity to reduce the gap.

Fortunately after an initial big run the fish gave up the fight pretty quickly and the next challenge was reeling it in. We could see it scooting across the surface as we dragged it behind us and I developed a new method of waiting until the fish was on the top of a wave and then reeling madly while it surfed down the face and then just held on for dear life as it fell off the back. It only took about 6 or 7 of these waves and we had it at the boat, a beautiful 1m long Wahoo. We love these fish for many reasons. It was the first type we ever caught on Kilauea, the white flesh is as tasty as yellowfin tuna but much more versatile, making great sushi and steaks for the BBQ but also being great in soups and breaded in tacos and for some reason Lottie is obsessed with taking close up photos of its head and fins.

Jazz taught Lynnie how to make sushi which we had as a starter and Lottie knocked up a splendid Spanish fish soup with chorizo to follow, a boat favourite. In all we will get 5 full meals from the fish, a great result.

There’s been a bit of chat about time zones and date lines amongst the crew. We have 3 clock changes to make in the next 7 days which is a little intense by usual ocean sailing standards. We’re currently in the Cook Islands time zone which is the same as Tahiti. Its 8:30pm here now. The next is Samoa where it is 7:30pm and then things get weird. As we sail further west we get to Tonga where its 7:30pm as well but tomorrow and then we get to Fiji where its 6:30pm, also tomorrow. We just realised that if we’re not careful, we could miss Hugo’s birthday on the 14th July altogether and he’d have to wait another year before he can turn 12. Fortunately you can kind of make up the rules on your own boat so we’ll probably elect to lose the 15th or 16th instead. On more positive news we’ve worked out we can slip into Samoa time at exactly 6pm tomorrow just after happy hour so that we get happy hour all over again. I may double the booze ration to celebrate.

Other than that, we’re still ploughing furrows down big hills of blue and its likely to continue like this with a feisty breeze right up behind us probably all the way to Fiji. All crew members have settled into life at sea and with full bellies of wahoo they are all snoozing in their bunks while I watch the big fat moon light up the waves.

Day 3 – hold on and send it!

We’re going fast, really fast. Just now the speed was sitting on a solid 14 knots for quite a while as all 12 tonnes of us sent it down a wave for what seemed like minutes but was probably seconds. We’ve just put in a second reef but the boat speed has hardly dropped. With winds gusting up to 30 knots and Kilauea on her favourite point of sail, a broad reach, its hardly surprising. Its forecast to stay like this for the next few days with the added bonus of the swell height rising even higher so that should be exhilarating / terrifying depending on your point of view. We recorded 24 hour runs of 179 and 177 miles for our first two days, I think the next one could be even higher.

The crew are taking it in their stride. As a family we have sailed over 8,000 miles now so I guess I shouldn’t be surprised but waves that used to turn Lottie pale back in the Caribbean now are hardly even noticed by her. Lynnie is loving it reminiscing about her Ballyhoo / Mistress Quickly days although I think we are slowly converting her to the ways of the catamaran. “I can put down my wine while we’re going 9 knots and its still there when I come back for it!” she delightedly reported. Bet you can’t do that on a 75 foot maxi can you?

Hugo’s going for a world record as to how long someone can stay in the same pair of pyjamas. I’ve declared it a shower day and two of the crew took up the offer so at least some of us are looking a little less disheveled. I’m with the kids on this one and will hold off another day until the smell has fully matured.

Lottie nailed our best dinner yet, an ambitious poached wahoo which came out beautifully and all declared it fit for a fine dining restaurant. Unbelievable what comes out of that galley as the seas and weather rages all around us.

We’ve sailed past most of the Cook Islands now and there’s a bit of a gap before we sail between Nuie and Samoa. Hugo noticed that we will be crossing an oceanic trench over 8km deep before we get to Tonga and then worked out how much anchor chain we would need and how long it would take to drop it if we wanted to stop there. He reckons assuming we had a big enough locker it would take 10 hours to drop enough chain to hit the seabed and more than a day and a night to let out enough to get the right depth to chain ratio. Yes, we are that bored out here.

Here’s hoping for an uneventful night as the miles continue to roll under the keel

Day 4 – Squall-tastic

Last night was one of our trickier ones.

We had squalls around during yesterday and they just got more numerous and punchy as light fell. Lottie woke me at about 1am suggesting we reduce sail and the wind was well into the mid 30 knots range so she had a decent point. In the end we just hauled down the mainsail, bagged it and sailed under just our little jib. The speed went from a seemingly out of control 12 knots to a sedate 6-7 knots but it meant that we could all get some decent shut eye off watch without constantly feeling we were going to capsize or get dismasted. Obviously we were nowhere near doing either of these things but your mind goes to some dark places when you’re tired. Well, mine does anyway.

At dawn we threw the mainsail up again and we have been trucking along throughout this squall free day letting our faithful autopilot do its thing.

There is a big swell forecast to build out of the SE tonight and hold throughout tomorrow before shrinking again. Its been a little tense waiting for this as the seas already look pretty bloody big to us. Nick from Quickstep Too and I have been debating via satphone texts the right time to gybe to get a good angle into the gap between two Tongan islands we are aiming for and minimise the impact of these larger waves. Early tomorrow morning seems to be the time we are landing on. Its been great to cruise in company with someone so knowledagble and experienced. Also, 160 miles ahead of us are our Kiwi/American mates on Far Out who are giving us a flavour of what is to come, some epic fishing by the sounds of it. We’re slowly hauling them in but they’re sailing their boat pretty quick so I think they’ll sneak into Savusavu before us at this rate.

I knocked up my famous beer battered wahoo tacos for dinner tonight, always a crowd pleaser. After three nights in a row of fish, however, I think we’re due some red meat tomorrow.

In other news, Hugo has worked out that the country furthest from us right now is Chad in Africa. Well, there you go

Day 5 – Super moon

Well after the fun and games of a couple of nights ago we have had a very steady 36 hours with consistent winds in the 20-25 range and thankfully no squalls. In fact we have only done one thing with the sails in all that time which was to gybe them. It was pre-dawn and the wind was slowly shifting left as forecast so I decided that we would gybe as soon as someone came on deck after their sleep. That someone happened to be Hugo and so he helped me take preventers and gybe both sails in a fair bit of breeze and waves and then set them up on starboard tack wing on wing. We haven’t adjusted them since. He did an excellent job and nobody down below even noticed.

The monster waves never really materialised and in fact the seas seem slightly smaller than yesterday although maybe its just us getting used to them. I guess the bigger swell either petered out or hasn’t reached us yet. Either way we are now north of Nuie and romping along towards “The Tongan Gap” as we’re calling it which we expect to reach in another 36 hours.

The most exciting thing that happened today was catching a mahi mahi, our first since sailing to Rudder Cut Cay in the Bahamas which seems like a lifetime ago. The kids have been desperate to catch one of these fish since we entered the Pacific and when it leapt out of the water to try to shake the hook all shimmering blues, greens and silvers the kids also leapt up and down and high fived each other. Trying to haul in a fish when you’re surfing down waves at 10 knots is always a struggle but I reapplied the technique I leant on the wahoo which was to get the fish on a wave and reel like crazy as they surf down them. There must be a name for that. Fish surfing?

So it was fish again for the forth night in a row but no one is complaining. Lynnie knocked up a delicious pan fired Mahi Mahi with ratatouille and cous cous. Although we have some bananas left, we were all relieved to find out that “Dorado with banana” which Lynnie made all way back in 1990 when we crossed the Atlantic together didn’t get another showing.

Other than eat, relax and watch our wake streak off up the relentless waves rolling in behind us there is not a great deal to do. I’ll do a general walk around the boat each day adjusting reefing lines and halyards to reduce chaffing. I also go into the port engine room to visit our most valuable crew member, the autopilot, to give it some words of encouragement, tell it how much its loved and on one occasion I tightened one of the bolts which was coming lose.

For the second time in the Pacific we have lucked out on some good moon action whilst night sailing. The first was the partial eclipse “blood moon” we observed sailing from Makemo to Tahanea and tonight we’re treated to a “super moon”. This occurs when the moon’s slightly elliptical orbit brings it closer to the earth at the time it is also full (I think) and its risen directly behind us like a light bulb shining into the cockpit as I write this update.

Day 6 – The boy who had half a birthday

Parents can be really annoying can’t they? You wait all year for your 12th birthday and when the day finally comes, your parents sail you across the date line from East to West making you jump forward a day DURING YOUR BIRTHDAY so you miss some of it!

That being said, its been a very fun day on the good ship Kilauea. Lottie was up at 5:30am during my watch and together we decked the cabin out with balloons and streamers so that when Hugo arose at his usual 6:15 he was greeted by a pile of presents and a very definite birthday vibe.

Almost all the presents were games but his main one (to be shared with Jasmine for her birthday) was a subwing that Hugo fell in love with after using his friend’s on Lolalitta. It should get a lot of use in Fiji!

There were pancakes and bacon with lashings of maple syrup for breakfast and a day of playing games, listening to Hugo’s favourite tunes and generally having a laugh. The best game was “you’ve got crabs” introduced to us by our kiwi mates on Waterhorse. Its one of those games that works just as well with kids as it does with drunken adults and I highly recommend it to everyone.

The cake came out at 4pm just as a squall hit and we struggled to keep the candles lit long enough for Hugo to blow them out in the increased wind. My idea of gybing just as were about to sing Happy Birthday did not go down well.

Straight after that, Lottie grabbed a rotting banana from the stalk tied on to the back of the boat and hurled it into the sea thus signifying that the onboard pop up pub, “The Mouldy Banana” had opened its doors for its weekly pub quiz. I brought out some chilled dark ales from my secret stash in the bilge, the kids got their fizzy drinks and question master Lottie kept us entertained with a wide variety of questions covering topics such as sea creatures, French Polynesia and music. Unbelievably, George Michael did not feature this time. Suffice to say, Birthday boy won the game.

I copped a bit of abuse when I was cooking some burgers (one of Hugo’s favourite meals and, more importantly, NOT FISH) which took a while on the BBQ which is exposed to the full wind. “Come on dad it’ll be tomorrow by the time you serve dinner!”. They had a point and as it was, I just served the burgers in time. We started dinner yesterday and finished today crossing the International Date Line at around 7pm Tongan time and in that instant jumped forward a day.

So Hugo has had a birthday he’ll never forget (well 79% of one) and, more importantly he’ll have a good answer for one of those icebreaker questions you get at those corporate retreats when you have to stand up and say something people don’t know about you. Well that’s if he’s ever unfortunate enough to be at such a thing!

We’re entering a critical part of the passage as we approach the string of islands, reefs and seamounts that makes up northern Tonga. We should arrive just before daylight and we’re aiming for a gap between two patches of shallow water. Unfortunately, the squalls are back with rain, highly variable winds in strength and direction and lots of cloud blotting out the moon so I feel its going to be a tricky night.

Day 7 – Bursting through the Tongan Gap

Last night was pretty lively.

I was awoken at 3am from a very pleasant dream to find we were being hit by a pretty big squall and needed to reef the sails sharpish. Time was of the essence so although it was bucketing down with rain I (stupidly) didn’t bother with wet weather gear, chucked on my life jacket over my shorts and went up to the mast to sort out the reefing lines while Lynnie pulled strings in the cockpit. By the time we were done I was so drenched it was as if I’d jumped in the sea. I even had to ring out my undies. Now, I’ll miss a lot about sailing when we go back to normal life, but I have to say it will be such a luxury putting my head down on a pillow each night knowing there is very little chance I’ll be woken up at some godforsaken hour to manage some minor crisis while someone chucks buckets of water at me.

We arrived at the Tongan Gap 2 hours before day break and in the midst of a series of squalls. We had picked a location between two islands which appeared to have a lot of room as far as avoiding land went but it did have a series of underwater sea mounts and shallows, one of which went from 2,000m to just 15m deep, ie you could see the bottom if you sailed over it. Now, I know my mate Chae from Waterhorse would have sailed over each seamount by moonlight, 5 fishing lines out, gaff in hand, whooping like a banshee and pulling out human sized tuna from the sea by the dozen, but I have to say I was a little cautious/scared of these things. With all the recent volcanic activity in Tonga, whose to say that one of these mounts hadn’t just pushed itself up above sea level recently ready to turn Kilauea into a little wreck symbol on a chart?

As we were running almost dead downwind goose winged we had to stay at the same angle to the wind. The problem was the wind shifted up to 30 degrees in each squall and so we ended up sailing a bit of a wavy course completely at the mercy of the wind. As it happened the resulting slalom took us north of the first seamount that I had my eye on and south of the second. Before we knew it we were through and I could go below to change my undies for the second time that night.

After all the fun and games of Hugo’s birthday yesterday and the antics last night, today was a rather subdued, if a little squally, one. Highlights included hitting our fastest speed yet, 17.6 knots in a particularly sneaky squall, putting back the clocks again giving us an extended happy hour and having a second pub quiz in 2 days. This time Hugo was the quiz master. He’d been developing his quiz over the last few days and we were bracing ourselves for a barrage of Minecraft and formula 1 questions. However, he came up with a great variety on a number of topics including stars and, I am proud to say, sailing. My favourite was the one on apparent wind which caught out at least one adult member of crew.

Well that’s all for now, here’s to a night of dry undies! (that came out much weirder than I meant)

Day 6 – Last night at sea

Its been a glamour day on the ocean.

Blue skies, bright sun, a fresh but manageable following wind, gentle rollers and not a squall to be seen. I love sailing on days like today, the boat just wants to race to the horizon and all you have to do is give it a little hand to send it on its way.

Its a little bitter sweet then that, all being well, this will be our last night at sea. With just 135 miles to go, we expect to be tied up to our quarantine mooring ball at Copra Shed Marina in Savusavu by 4pm tomorrow, maybe slightly earlier if the breeze freshens a bit. Far Out are 50 miles ahead of us and Quickstep Too 30 miles behind and we’ve really enjoyed sailing in company with these two boats and bantering with them using satphone text messages. We’ve been working hard to try to catch Far Out but they’re racing away on a broad reach now and leaving us in their dust. Either way, I am sure there will be some beers, maybe even champagne and definitely plenty of rum flowing tomorrow evening when we all catch up. Whilst not our longest, a 1,600 mile passage is still a pretty significant achievement by anyone’s standards and its successful conclusion definitely needs to be celebrated!

We’ve now taken a big bite out of the distance left to reach Australia and only have a few 2 or 3 day passages left before we reach home. In fact when we get in tomorrow we will be as close to Sydney as we will be to Tahiti where we were just a few weeks ago. Again that’s bitter sweet as we don’t want this adventure to end anytime soon. Good thing it won’t then as we have Fiji, Vanuatu and New Caledonia to explore before then!

All that’s left now is to enjoy the solitude and beauty of our last night watches, gaze up at the cloudless sky full of stars, watch the moon rise and start thinking about all the adventures we want to have in Fiji.

Day 9 – Bulla Fiji

We have just anchored in the creek at Savsavu and are waiting for the health, customs and immigration to board us and check us in. We gave Far Out a big wave as we motored past. We’ve only been at sea for 9 days but it is a little overwhelming, all the colours, noise and smells.

We had a double strike on the lines this morning and landed both, a mahi mahi and a wahoo. The freezer is getting full and we’ll need it to be with my sister and her tribe on their way here soon!

Crew has been awesome, especially guest crew Lynnie who still has what it takes and always offered to leap up to the mast whenever things got a bit hairy. I couldn’t be happier with the boat which performed admirably, it really does love being in the ocean. But the best thing was that this time WE DIDNT BREAK ANYTHING!!! Best on Ground definitely goes to the autopilot that steered us through some huge waves and big squalls with aplomb. We never even came close to gybing or rounding up inadvertently. If you could love a machine, that one would have my heart forever…

Stats for the passage are:

• Distance: 1592 nautical miles
• Time: 9 days 2 hours
• Average speed: 7.3 knots
• Max speed: 19.2 knots (yes it is a new boat record, yes it was as scary as it was exhilarating and no we won’t be doing that again)
• Fish caught: 6 (skipjack tuna, yellowfin tuna, wahoo (2), mahi mahi (2)
• No. of gybes: approximately 40!
• Hours of motoring: 2 (one to get out of pass and one to get into Savusavu creek)

A rather challenging but hugely rewarding passage, thanks to all who followed us. We would not have made it here before nightfall today had it not been for Quickstep Two who drove us hard all the way. Every time the wind eased and we would normally leave it for a few hours before shaking a reef out, we thought “what would Nick do?” and shook it out there and then. All that adds up to quite a few hours over the course of a passage like this.

Now, where is that landfall beer got to?